


I'll Be Home for Christmas

by Twobit_scribbles



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood, Christmas, Depression mention, Gen, Loneliness, Mentions of Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 22:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8942836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twobit_scribbles/pseuds/Twobit_scribbles
Summary: It’s hard when you can’t be with the ones you love during the holidays. Especially when your loved ones are billions and billions of light-years away.The Holts at Christmastime, across the universe.





	

**Author's Note:**

> In my house, we ignore time dilation for the sake of angst.

_I’ll be home for Christmas, you can count on me…_

December 25th. 

The date on the screen stared back at Pidge and froze her feet to the floor. She’d just had a few things check over before she got her armor. She was supposed to have moved quickly and gotten back to preparing for battle. But she’d accidently clicked on her calendar app, and now she found she couldn’t move. Her finger lingered over the tracking pad, ready to click the little red x in the corner of the digital calendar, but she couldn’t press it.

It was Christmas, and she’d had no idea.

She hadn’t even known it was _December_. How could so much time have passed without her knowledge?

Did the others know? She couldn’t imagine that Lance would keep quiet about something like this, but then again, he was the most sensitive to homesickness out of all of them. Maybe he’d known, but just not said anything. Maybe he had chosen not to know how much time had passed. She had obviously been avoiding the calendar herself.

_December 25th._

She was supposed to be _home_ by now.

Once upon a time before her life began to sound like something out of a mecha anime from the eighties, she used to think she would be home for Christmas. Instead she was god knows how many miles away from Earth, fighting in an intergalactic war that only a handful of humans even knew was raging, she still hadn’t found her father and brother and oh god, oh god her mother, her mother was all alone and-

Coran’s voice over the speakers echoed down the massive hallways. A fifteen-minute warning. They were approaching the Galra-controlled planet, their target for the day, and it was time to prepare for battle. Pidge sighed and closed her laptop with a quiet click.

There wasn’t time to think about this right now. Like it or not, convenient or not, she had a duty to preform now. And intergalactic wars didn’t stop for Christmas.

* * *

 

_Please have snow…_

Matt huddled deeper under the thin blanket and tried to pull his trembling, aching limbs even tighter to his body. Another hard day on nameless, Galra controlled planet number something billion, mining for whatever special resource the Druids wanted in the freezing cold. Out here there were no spacesuits, carefully crafted to keep the workers warm. There was no reason for them to care; slave labor was one resource the Galra had a seemingly endless supply of.

In another life, he used to love cold weather. Before Kerberos. Before that fucking _frozen rock._

There really wasn’t any point in thinking about home anymore; he’d never get back. Shiro was probably dead because of him. His father had never been a frail man, but he was old, and the Galra were not kind to their prisoners. He was probably dead too. And mom and Katie were billions and billion of miles away far out of his reach.

He was starting to forget things. Little things like the smell of his mother’s perfume, the name of his dog, the taste of those fucking frozen peas his dad loved so much. The longer he was out here, the more he would lose. It was inevitable, it was pointless, but he couldn’t stop himself from clinging to those memories, faded as they were, like a lifeline.

He used to love snow.

Katie, little shit that she was, started snowball fights every chance she got. Long afternoons of tactical warfare that without fail always dissolved into tussling in the snow until they were both soaking wet and half buried, gasping out their laughter. The sunset usually forced their retreat back home, to thaw out their frozen limbs on the couch in front of the old-fashioned fireplace. Truces that would not last through morning made over mugs of hot chocolate.

Sometimes they’d make temporary alliances in pursuit of bigger targets. He remembered long, anticipation filled evenings spent huddle together behind the bushes, laying in wait to ambush their parents when they got home. His parents had put an end to that at the crack of dawn one morning, with an ambush of their own. Even now he didn’t think he’d ever forget waking up to a shock of cold down his back, or looking up to his mother’s too innocently smiling face. He could still hear Katie’s scandalized cries, and his father’s laughter echoing down the hallway.

He used to love cold weather. Back when the bone-deep chill of the epic battle was easily banished with blankets, and hot chocolate, and fires. Back when the only war he had to worry about was one fought with snowballs.

* * *

 

_And mistletoe…_

In the dark of the night, in the scant few hours of relative peace before a new day of labor began, Sam Holt had a lot to think about. Matt, his son, and Shiro, whom he’d grown to love like a son as well, in the clutches of these hostile aliens; who knows where they were or if they were even alive. His future, if he even had one. His family back on Earth. If Earth was next on the Galra’s hit list.

Some nights it was simple. Some nights he just missed his wife.

He missed the little things. The way she fiddled with her wedding ring when she was concentrating. Her awful coffee, brewed way too strong because she’d desensitized herself to weaker stuff after year and years of late nights. The satisfied glint in her eye where a project turned out just right.

He missed seeing her, touching her. The times she’d playfully smack his ass while she walked past, and smirk at his goofy grin. Holding hands like the awkward college kid they’d been when they first met. Unashamedly kissing her under fake plastic mistletoe, ignoring the dramatic groans of ‘grooooooss’ from the kids…

* * *

 

_And presents under the tree…._

Rebecca Holt sat on her couch. She took a sip of coffee from her mug. It was getting lukewarm. Sam had always hated her coffee. It was getting too late for caffeine, but it wasn’t like she had anywhere to be in the morning anyway. Her office was closed tomorrow, for the holidays.

She had been doing alright. Well, maybe not alright, but she had been doing better. She was getting out of bed most mornings, going to work most days. She was dealing. But she’d hit a wall today.

Its not as if she didn’t know that Christmas was coming. It was impossible not to, what with the decorations stung all over store fronts and residential housing alike, the advertisements plastered all over TV screens and billboards, and the Christmas music invading every radio station and playing over the speakers of every shop in town.

But knowing it was coming was only half the battle. Accepting that Christmas was here, and she was still alone except for the dog curled at her feet was the hard part.

Her living room looked almost painfully bare without a Christmas tree, but she just didn’t have the energy to put one up this year. She couldn’t bring herself to climb the stairs to the attic to bring down decorations. Even now she still avoided the attic as if she were a child, scared of some unseen monster or ghost.

But there were ghosts in her attic. Ghosts in the form of Sam and Matt’s unopened Christmas presents, bought and wrapped before their ship disappeared into the void of space. In her children’s clumsily hand painted ornaments, the lopsided snowmen, popsicle stick reindeer, and rocket ships, because even then they dreamed of the stars. In those old-fashioned string lights that Sam insisted looked better than the newer brands.

The only light decorating the house now was the same old porch light she kept on year-round now in the hope that someday her last remaining family member would see it, would know she was welcome. The faint, vague hope that someday she’d open that door and Katie would be standing there, healthy and whole.

* * *

 

_Christmas day will find me, where the love-light gleams…._

Pidge used to _like_ the color purple, before the Galra Empire and their endless supply of purple laser-shooting alien blasters.

She and Shiro were supposed to evacuate the village. With Lance, Keith and Hunk providing distraction and cover fire, it should have been easy. But was anything ever easy with the Galra? No. Instead of a straight shot to safety, they were trying to outrun droves of Sentries firing without discretion into the mass of fleeing locals.

Bright purple light streaked past her, closer and closer, hitting her shield, scorching the land around her. They were so close, so close to stronghold. Twenty more meters and they’d all be behind the shields. But the locals were panicking and they screamed as the Sentries drew closer, A few more steps and they would be safe, but the bright purple laser lights closing in and there wasn’t any time left to think, she just shot her shield arm out and hoped it would deflect something, that no more of the locals would die so close to safety.

Pain raced up her side and shoulder, but then they were through. Behind the shields. Safe, for now.

“Pidge!”

That was Shiro’s voice. Why did he sound so scared? Oh yeah, the pain, what was that about? It was all she could do to not laugh when she looked down and saw blood running down her chest plate, streaking down her side. Red and Green. _Merry Christmas_.

* * *

 

_I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams…_

Matt Holt’s utter exhaustion finally won out over the freezing, uncomfortable environment, and he fell into a restless sleep.

Sam Holt closed his eyes, and tried not to think about where he’d rather be laying his head.

Rebecca Holt rinsed out her mug and left it in the sink. She walked into the living room and turned off the lamp. In the dark living room, and she stood and watched the glow of the porch light through the window until she could bring herself to continue on into the bedroom.

Katie Holt was being carried in someone’s arms. Shiro’s, if she wasn’t mistaken, but she was dizzy and couldn’t quite focus on what he was saying. Shock from the blood loss, some corner of her mind helpfully supplied. Probably should have been alarming, but it didn’t quite register.

Shiro was always so good to her and her family. She should invite him over for Christmas dinner next year. His arms tensed around her. Was she speaking out-loud? Oh well.

The next thing she knew, a rush of cold air washed over her, and the healing pod pulled her under.

**Author's Note:**

> I heard this song on the radio, thought of the Holts and got sad. So you get to be sad too! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! 
> 
> (Poor Sam got the short end of the stick because he was the hardest for me Also using Rebecca as Mama Holt’s first name was 100% inspired by Calico Tomcat’s glorious fic Stardust, Silk and Steel, go check it out!)


End file.
